Luke-Warm Memories
by Baseo
Summary: She left you to me..and I'll always be here to watch over you. [AU-ish.]


At dawn, the sky was painted a pale green. Something you could only describe as seasickness.

A woosh of air left his lungs as he erected himself on his mattress. His legs swung over the frame. Long, bony hands clutching for the edge, shaking.

It was a Tuesday morning, and it seemed that it was a perfect day for this type of weather. Tuesday with a sickly sky. You wouldn't even have to pray for rain.

The brunette elongated his legs, skin becoming taught as muscles strecthed beneath skin and above bone.

His eyes were bleary and nothing was helping with the pain he was drenched in.

Footsteps lead to the french doors of the balcony, the ocean lay just ahead, moaning with an on coming storm.

For all that it was, someone might have called it the worst. Kaname thought it was peaceful. Not necessarily a beautiful day, but it was the calm before a storm.

Peaceful.

The brunette figure reached for the door handle, hand filled with tremors. When he finally regained himslef enough to open it, he nostrils were filled with the pungent stench of humid air. His body was hit with warm sea breeze air, and he wondered then why he hadn't felt it inside his room as well.

"Kaname, close the door please. I have the A/C on." Moonlit hair passed his peripheral vision.

Sienna orbs watched as Zero went to work, organizing and re-arranging the contents of his coffee table. He placed the magazine pile on the right side of the sofa haphazardly, and moved the remotes out of the way.

"Here, come eat. And take your medications."

Kaname placed himself on the cushion, morning greeting spoken in the silverette's direction. He picked up two circular tablets, and popped them past his lips.

"You're supposed to take them with food, you know.." Zero exasperated, but didn't push any further.

Kaname gave a lopsided grin and swallowed. "Doesn't matter anyway. The damn things aren't helping much anyway. I'll have to talk to the doctor again."

The other occupant hummed in agreement.

Zero situated himself on the seat beside the brunette, reaching for the toast to butter it. There was a comfortable silence between them. It had somehow ended up like this. After Yuuki had given back her life for Kaname, Zero had stayed behind to watch after the only other she could call a brother.

* * *

After many delibirations, Zero had decided that his two daughters were well along enough that they should create a legacy of their own. So he removed himself from that place, the place where Yuuki and he had spent so much time together in. It was time to start fresh.

He left without another word and went to collect Kaname.

When Kaname had been found, he was living in the middle of the forest, having been taken in by a kind middle-aged woman who herded wolves all by her lonesome. She claimed he had been with her for the past three months and was quite a mannered man. But he seemed to be having complications.

Kaname, who had been left in his human condition, had changed all cells physically. There was no pure blooded status. There was nothing. Sometime during the cell change, he must have complicated minorly.

But even that minor, had changed his well-being as a human man.

The woman with straw-like blonde hair had been caring for Kaname, and had given him home-brewed medicinal herbs that should have helped some of his ailments. She was not a wealthy woman and seemed to not know much outside herself and the forest. What little she did know of the world outside the spirit-strewn forest was misguided.

Zero agreed to give more proper care to Kaname, and take the brunette with him. The straw-haired woman was more or less worried. She let him go without a protest.

That quiet place had been somewhere in the less inhabited regions of Cananda. The two left it.

Kaname did not fight or question when they travelled. He only observed and listened. Zero somehow knew this man might have been the one he had seen a glimpse of at the very end. Back when he himself was so very young.

They settled in a small place by the beaches, where no one would know their names. Of course, it had been so long, and Zero had rarely travelled in the last thousand years. And Kaname had not been seen by the public for even longer.

One morning, as they walked along the shore, Kaname asked;

"Why did you bring me here?"

The silverette stopped abruptly, and faced those warm eyes. "Where have I met you in the past..?" Kaname continued to question.

Zero gave a small smileand sighed. He plopped himself on the warm sand, and patted the spot beside him.

Those sienna eyes flashed with something akin to apprehension, but Zero ignored it either way.

"I've known you for a long time, Kaname."

That was the first time the brunette had ever heard Zero call him by a name. Whenever they did speak, it was always assumed that Zero was talking to him, especially if they were alone.

Lilac eyes watched Kaname's own. He looked like he had wanted to say something, but let him continue to speak instead.

"Maybe one day, I'll let you have your memories back. Maybe again, I won't. I don't want to see the poisoned man you were once before. You were percieved as a cruel person, and carried the world's weight on your shoulders..."

Zero grabbed a fistful of sand and let it drain slowly through his fingers.

"But maybe that's what let you be a loving man to those you treasured most."

A sigh.

"Forget about that for a while. I brought you here to see things you won't remember. To let you see things in the light, the way she would have wanted you to see them. You let her live in the light for such a long time...I think it's fair enough that you should too."

Zero stood up and dusted the sand from his pants. Kaname followed suit as Zero continued back the way they came from, toward home.

"If it's what you want...Zero...then I'll be happy as I have been. Being the man that I should be."

Zero paused. He nodded so minutely that Kaname shouldn't have noticed.

But he did.

* * *

**Shh...I know I'm bad. I'll be uploading the next chapter of SO tonight of tomorrow morning.**


End file.
